Dell comes to the rescue of video production studio.
The right choice of equipment is the key to success not only for tech companies. This aspect is no less important for creatives, because the computing system should not be a bottleneck in the process of creating content of any complexity level. Roughly speaking, the hardware should “keep up” with the thought of creative workers - designers, animators, video editors - and help (and not interfere) to create masterpieces.
This statement illustrates the history of the Texas creative agency Sparksight. It specializes, in particular, in the creation of advertising videos, which in itself imposes serious requirements on the technological component of the business. Like many US video companies, the agency has used Apple Mac computers for many years. But over time, the tasks became more and more difficult, and the existing infrastructure turned into a bottleneck: it did not allow to perform the work in full in the shortest possible time.
Agree, if we are talking about processing photos in high resolution, 4K video and creating complex videos with hundreds or thousands of layers, the system should be ready for such loads. Kelly Shores, the head of the agency, complains: every time animators try to make small changes to the video, they have to wait between 30 seconds and 2 minutes for the processing process. What to say about the rendering of 3D-models: sometimes this process lasts all night and does not always end successfully. This inadmissibly increases the time spent on each task, and completely kills the desire to bring work to perfection.
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Employees of Sparksight decided not only to replace the hardware, but also to switch from the Apple Final Cut Pro video processing program to Adobe Premiere Pro. Such a choice is made by many workers in the video industry after not the most successful, in their opinion, changes in Apple software. The refusal of software that is compatible exclusively with Mac computers, allowed to choose from a wider range of platforms. In short, now it was possible to organize the infrastructure of the agency on the basis of its needs, and not software requirements. After a brief meeting, the creatives decided to switch to the PC, although they feared difficulties adapting to Windows 8. However, the fears were in vain: Kelly claims that the employees got used very quickly.
What is the system chosen in Sparksight? After examining the market, they stopped at Dell Precision M3800 and M6800 mobile workstations, as well as tower-type stations equipped with NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics adapters. Now, video processing in the After Effects application takes less: 45 minutes versus 10 hours on Mac Pro. The turning point was the use of the exclusive Dell Precision Optimizer software, which automatically configures the CPU cores, NVIDIA graphics card and other parameters. As a result, the system becomes as productive as possible to work with a specific application. The first test rendering process at the Dell Precision Workstation, according to Kelly, took about four hours. It was a good result, but far from what the Sparksight employees expected. But after the launch of the Dell Precision Optimizer, the rendering time dropped to 45 minutes - and that is another matter.
By the way, Dell worked closely with Adobe to create an optimizer utility, so the hardware platform based on Precision workstations is ideal for working with Adobe Creative Cloud software. As a result, the agency was able to significantly increase the workload and complete the tasks faster. For example, for video editing, Sparksight employees no longer need to convert the footage. It is loaded from camera memory right into Premiere Pro, which saves a huge amount of time and terabytes of hard disk memory. Integration between multiple Creative Cloud applications allows designers, animators, and other team members to work simultaneously on different parts of the same project and seamlessly put together the best practices.
Thanks to the new hardware platform and software, studio staff were able to accelerate other work processes. If earlier for previewing the video, it was necessary to lower the resolution twice and wait for about 20 seconds until it was rendered, now the video editors open it in maximum resolution and view it in real time.
The productivity of work at Sparksight has grown not only when processing photos and videos in the office, but also during filming. Every day working at a location is very expensive, so it is important to act quickly here. Field teams use the Dell Precision M3800 mobile stations to “overtake” high-resolution photos and video clips, quickly synchronize sound with the video sequence, and even process pictures when the photo session is not over. Previously, all this was done only on returning to the office, and now the finished work can be shown to the customer literally two days after the shooting. One of the clients was so surprised by the speed and quality of work that he now plans to conclude a long-term and very profitable contract with Sparksight, making the agency a supplier of photo and video content for hundreds of its offices around the world.
Increasing the efficiency of work, the agency team began to master more complex tasks. Employees improve their skills and try their strength in new directions. Previously, this was problematic, since almost any process took an unreasonably long time. Dell Precision workstations and NVIDIA graphics made the task easier for Sparksight creatives: the current tasks can be completed faster, respectively, there is time for experiments and new projects. And the more work, the more profit.
In the design environment, the attachment to Apple products is very strong, and sometimes it is difficult to overcome, even if the productivity of work on Macs is several times lower than on PCs. The Sparksight team is rather an exception to the rules. But, according to the head of the agency, the benefits of switching to Dell workstations are more important than tradition and personal preferences. According to Kelly, the computing power of the new infrastructure for every dollar spent on it is twice as high as the Mac computers can offer. For business, it is more important than the power of habit - there can not argue.
This statement illustrates the history of the Texas creative agency Sparksight. It specializes, in particular, in the creation of advertising videos, which in itself imposes serious requirements on the technological component of the business. Like many US video companies, the agency has used Apple Mac computers for many years. But over time, the tasks became more and more difficult, and the existing infrastructure turned into a bottleneck: it did not allow to perform the work in full in the shortest possible time.
Agree, if we are talking about processing photos in high resolution, 4K video and creating complex videos with hundreds or thousands of layers, the system should be ready for such loads. Kelly Shores, the head of the agency, complains: every time animators try to make small changes to the video, they have to wait between 30 seconds and 2 minutes for the processing process. What to say about the rendering of 3D-models: sometimes this process lasts all night and does not always end successfully. This inadmissibly increases the time spent on each task, and completely kills the desire to bring work to perfection.
')
Employees of Sparksight decided not only to replace the hardware, but also to switch from the Apple Final Cut Pro video processing program to Adobe Premiere Pro. Such a choice is made by many workers in the video industry after not the most successful, in their opinion, changes in Apple software. The refusal of software that is compatible exclusively with Mac computers, allowed to choose from a wider range of platforms. In short, now it was possible to organize the infrastructure of the agency on the basis of its needs, and not software requirements. After a brief meeting, the creatives decided to switch to the PC, although they feared difficulties adapting to Windows 8. However, the fears were in vain: Kelly claims that the employees got used very quickly.
What is the system chosen in Sparksight? After examining the market, they stopped at Dell Precision M3800 and M6800 mobile workstations, as well as tower-type stations equipped with NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics adapters. Now, video processing in the After Effects application takes less: 45 minutes versus 10 hours on Mac Pro. The turning point was the use of the exclusive Dell Precision Optimizer software, which automatically configures the CPU cores, NVIDIA graphics card and other parameters. As a result, the system becomes as productive as possible to work with a specific application. The first test rendering process at the Dell Precision Workstation, according to Kelly, took about four hours. It was a good result, but far from what the Sparksight employees expected. But after the launch of the Dell Precision Optimizer, the rendering time dropped to 45 minutes - and that is another matter.
By the way, Dell worked closely with Adobe to create an optimizer utility, so the hardware platform based on Precision workstations is ideal for working with Adobe Creative Cloud software. As a result, the agency was able to significantly increase the workload and complete the tasks faster. For example, for video editing, Sparksight employees no longer need to convert the footage. It is loaded from camera memory right into Premiere Pro, which saves a huge amount of time and terabytes of hard disk memory. Integration between multiple Creative Cloud applications allows designers, animators, and other team members to work simultaneously on different parts of the same project and seamlessly put together the best practices.
Thanks to the new hardware platform and software, studio staff were able to accelerate other work processes. If earlier for previewing the video, it was necessary to lower the resolution twice and wait for about 20 seconds until it was rendered, now the video editors open it in maximum resolution and view it in real time.
The productivity of work at Sparksight has grown not only when processing photos and videos in the office, but also during filming. Every day working at a location is very expensive, so it is important to act quickly here. Field teams use the Dell Precision M3800 mobile stations to “overtake” high-resolution photos and video clips, quickly synchronize sound with the video sequence, and even process pictures when the photo session is not over. Previously, all this was done only on returning to the office, and now the finished work can be shown to the customer literally two days after the shooting. One of the clients was so surprised by the speed and quality of work that he now plans to conclude a long-term and very profitable contract with Sparksight, making the agency a supplier of photo and video content for hundreds of its offices around the world.
Increasing the efficiency of work, the agency team began to master more complex tasks. Employees improve their skills and try their strength in new directions. Previously, this was problematic, since almost any process took an unreasonably long time. Dell Precision workstations and NVIDIA graphics made the task easier for Sparksight creatives: the current tasks can be completed faster, respectively, there is time for experiments and new projects. And the more work, the more profit.
In the design environment, the attachment to Apple products is very strong, and sometimes it is difficult to overcome, even if the productivity of work on Macs is several times lower than on PCs. The Sparksight team is rather an exception to the rules. But, according to the head of the agency, the benefits of switching to Dell workstations are more important than tradition and personal preferences. According to Kelly, the computing power of the new infrastructure for every dollar spent on it is twice as high as the Mac computers can offer. For business, it is more important than the power of habit - there can not argue.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/259551/
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